But when they came to take up the young officer who had been false to his oath, he was dead; whether from fright at the aspect of Count Antonio and the imminent doom with which he was threatened, or by some immediate judgment of Heaven, I know not. For very various are the dealings of God with man. For one crime He will slay and tarry not, and so, perchance, was it meted out to that officer; but with another man His way is different, and He suffers him to live long days, mindful of his sin, in self-hatred and self-scorn, and will not send him the relief of death, how much soever the wretch may pray for it. Thus it was that God dealt with the hermit of the vault of the Peschetti, who did not find death till he had sought it for twenty-and-three years. I doubt not that in all there is purpose; even as was shown in the manner wherein the hermit, being himself bound and tied to a miserable life, was an instrument in saving the life of Count Antonio. CHAPTER VII. COUNT ANTONIO AND THE LADY OF RILANO. From the lips of Tommasino himself, who was cousin to Count Antonio, greatly loved by him, and partaker of all his enterprises during the time of his sojourn as an outlaw in the hills, this, the story of the Lady of Rilano, came to my venerable brother in Christ, Niccolo; and the same Niccolo, being a very old man, told it to me, so that I know that the story is true and every part of it, and tread here not on the doubtful ground of legend, but on the firm rock of the word of honest men. There is indeed one thing doubtful, Tommasino himself being unable to know the verity of it; yet that one thing is of small moment, for it is no more than whether the lady came first to Duke Valentine, offering her aid, or whether the Duke, who since the affair of the sacred bones had been ever active in laying schemes against Antonio, cast his eyes on the lady, and, perceiving that she was very fair and likely to serve his turn, sent for her, and persuaded her by gifts and by the promise of a great marriage to take the task in hand.